Telco Tuesday: Farewells, brotherly love, the enemy in your pocket and Iraqi billions

- The Financial Times has a good overview of goings on in Egyptian telecoms, where Vodafone is preparing to say farewell to the market that has treated it very well over the years. Vodafone's new CEO, Vittorio Colao, is keen to reign in spending, cash out of certain investments, and generally tighten up the company's balance sheet after more than a decade of flat-out expansion. Telecom Egypt, its joint-venture partner, could offer up to US$4.7 billion for control of the Egypt operation, analysts say. That kind of cash is hard to turn down these days.

- Your mobile phone, that oasis of beautiful things that is always just a reach away when awkward conversations or boring people threaten your inner peace,

, citing a bunch of studies that show every marketer and promoter in town is working how how to find their way into your pocket.

- The resolution of a bitter brotherly feud within India's richest family could mean a dramatic change in the lanscape of the African telecom market. The Ambani brothers, whose intense infighting led partially to the demise of a deal to merge South Africa's MTN with India's Reliance Telecommunications,

. MTN stock has risen sharply since the prominent "I love you, bro" moment,

- Etisalat have been talking up their impending entrance into the Iraqi telecom market since 2008, but it could happen in a way few expected. While all talk so far has been of a deal to buy a stake in Korek, the Kurdish operator, the company is now

. The license, which was finally approved this week, should make a nice little earner for the Iraqi government, which will own a 35% stake in the fourth operator. The three current licenses went for $1.25 billion each. But before Etisalat can go dropping that kind of money, it will need to deal with the concerns of the UAE State Audit Institution, which is reportedly

.